


Pressed Between the Pages

by seaunicorn



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Flowers, Letters, beauyasha - Freeform, soft gay shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 15:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16043636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seaunicorn/pseuds/seaunicorn
Summary: Beau hates it when Yasha has to leave, so Yasha does her best to keep in touch.





	Pressed Between the Pages

A storm was coming. Beau could feel it as the brutal winds chilled her to the bone and the gray clouds encroached on her blue sky.  It was the kind of storm that took Yasha away.

Not that it took Yasha away, necessarily, but she just always happened to disappear when a storm like this rolled around.

Maybe that’s why Beau volunteered for first watch with Yasha.

The last time they were on watch together, it was unbearably awkward as Beau tried to make small talk.  Beau has been known to constantly put her foot in her mouth, whereas Yasha never had much to say.  Beau hoped this time wouldn’t be quite as uncomfortable.

Tonight, instead of saying too much, Beau didn’t say anything at all.  She was too afraid of running her mouth again like an idiot.  Yasha didn’t say much either, but she has always been a woman of few words.

Two hours into watch and the pair had hardly spoken a word to each other.  The silence between was only broken by the tapping of Beau’s fingers on her staff and Jester’s surprisingly loud snoring—until the rain began to fall.  They both looked to the east as thunder rumbled in the distance.  The flashes of lightning were far-off, but fast approaching.

“You have to leave again, don’t you?”  Beau picked at the grass, pulling it out of the dirt and dropping it back on the ground.  She refused to meet Yasha’s eyes that she could feel studying her.

“Yes,” was Yasha’s simple reply, barely audible over the pouring rain.

Beau cleared her throat.  “When will you be back?”

For a moment, all Beau could hear was the sounds of the storm.  After a brief pause, Yasha said, “I don’t know.”

The raindrops were a barrage on top of the canopy they sat beneath.  The wind picked up, whistling violently past their ears.  Beau clenched a fist.  She looked up as lightning flashed across the sky, casting a ghostly glow on Yasha’s face for a split second.

“You’re upset.”  Yasha frowned when she saw the look in Beau’s eyes.

“Of course I’m upset,” Beau groaned.  “You always leave and we never know when you’re coming back or _if_ you’re coming back… You could fucking die and I’d never-- we would never know.”  Beau’s voice cracked, her eyes glistened.  Ever since Molly… She couldn’t bear to lose another friend.

Beau supposed she could let herself cry-- it was raining and Yasha would be none the wiser-- but she had too much pride.  What she didn’t expect was for Yasha to crawl over to Beau sitting five feet away from her on the ground, and wrap her arms around in a strong, albeit awkward hug.

Beau blinked as a few tears escaped.  Pride be damned.

“I am sorry, Beauregard,” Yasha said, heartfelt and seemingly just as distraught as Beau.  “I do wish I could stay.”

“Then just fucking stay,” Beau muttered.  A loud boom of thunder made Beau jump out of Yasha’s arms.

Yasha looked out at the sky, where the lightning flashed the brightest.  “I can’t,” she said.  After a brief pause, she shook her head.  “Don’t worry about me.  I will be fine.”

Yasha hesitated as she pulled away from Beau.  Her eyebrows scrunched together adorably as she thought hard, contemplating something.  And after an awkwardly long moment, she leaned forward once again and placed a soft kiss to Beau’s forehead, then stood to her feet.

Yasha was a woman of few words, and Beau was a woman of many, but words failed her as she watched Yasha silently disappear into the storm.

It was one week later to the day that Beau received a letter.  Although, using the word letter to describe what she received would be generous at best.

Beau received an envelope, hastily sealed, with her name written on the front in messy scrawl.  The envelope appeared to be a bit water damaged from the rain.

Beau did not receive mail very often.  The only people she really cared about were usually traveling with her, and she never told anyone else where she was.  Needless to say, Beau was surprised.  She curiously ripped open the envelope and, in her haste, accidentally ripped a corner off the folded-up parchment within.

Thankfully the piece that she ripped off was blank, as was most of the parchment itself.  When Beau unfolded it, a single, pressed flower fell out of the page and onto the floor of her room at the inn.  She bent down to pick it up and inspect it.  The flower was with five, small petals and a soft white center.  She raised an eyebrow and sat down on the bed to inspect the letter.

The page was blank except for two things: the smudge of blue where the flower had been pressed, and five letters written at the bottom of the page.  Yasha.

Beau brought the flower up to her nose and inhaled.  It probably smelled better when it was fresh; now it just smelled like parchment, but there was a bit of an earthy smell that had faded over some time.  As she sniffed the flower, she pictured Yasha doing the same thing just after she picked it and right before she pressed it inside the page.  Her lips curled into a small smile at the thought.

The door slammed open and, surprised, Beau fumbled to hide the flower and the letter, almost dropping it.  She ended up shoving them into her pants as she turned to find Jester and Nott coming into the room.

“Beau, we are going shopping!” Jester squealed excitedly.  “Get your butt out here or we will leave without you.”

“Be there in a minute!” Beau exclaimed.  She jumped off the bed and began to shoo them out of the room.

“What have you got there?” Nott asked.

“Nothing, just give me a minute!”

Nott glared at her, but the pair exited the room without further protest.  Beau retrieved the letter from her pants and frowned.  Great.  Now she had to hide it somewhere that Nott wouldn’t steal it.  She rifled through her bag until she found her copy of _Courting of the Crick_ at the bottom.  _Perfect_ , she thought.  Beau placed the flower back into place on the parchment, returned the parchment to the envelope, and then shoved it between the pages of the romance novel.  Satisfied with the hiding place, Beau went to join her friends for some shopping.

Beau received another letter from Yasha one week later.  A small bulb of chrysanthemum was flattened in this page.

Another week later, a few begonias were pressed.

The next week, the parchment looked a little rumpled and inside was a handful of sunflower petals.  Alongside Yasha’s name was scribbled a quick message: _The rest wouldn’t fit_.  It seemed she had tried, and subsequently failed, to press an entire sunflower inside the small piece of parchment.  Beau chuckled under her breath, folded it back up, and placed this letter inside her book with the rest of Yasha’s messages.

It was getting harder to hide the letters from everyone.  Yasha had been gone for two months, and she had received a letter every week since then.  She had a total of seven now, and _Courting of the Crick_ was beginning to get suspiciously fat.  Not only that, but because of the messages from Yasha, her mood had been uncharacteristically cheery and very unlike the gruff, grumpy Beauregard that everyone had grown accustomed to, dare she say like.  Beau had caught Nott sifting through her bag on multiple occasions to no avail, and she had since been almost caught sniffing flowers by Caleb and Caduceus as well.  Fjord remained oblivious, as usual, but it was only a matter of time.

Beau tended to rise with the sun.  It was a habit ingrained from her training with the Cobalt Soul, no matter how much she wished her body would let her sleep for just another twenty minutes.  Usually she is the first person awake in the mornings.  Sometimes Caduceus will already be sitting by the fire, making a pot of tea.  When Yasha is with them, she is also an early riser (sometimes Beau isn’t even sure if she actually sleeps).

Nott, however, is usually one of the last to wake, and she’s usually found in her own bedroll, not face-first in Beau’s bag – which is exactly how Beau found her one morning under the first rays of sunlight.

Beau rubbed the sleep from her eyes with a fist, and scrambled out of her bedroll.  She grabbed Nott by the ankle to pull her out of the bag.

“What are you doing?” Beau yawned.

But when she extracted Nott, the girl was clutching something in her tiny hands— _the book_!

Beau dropped her in shock, and Nott quickly hissed and skittered away.  Beau instinctively lunged forward and gripped the book.  “Nott, let go!”

“What are you hiding from us?” Nott asked, her tone accusatory.

Beau groaned as she strained to tug the book back from Nott.  “It’s none of your business!”

“We’re supposed to trust each other!”

“Nott, let _go_!”

“What the hell are you two yellin’ about?”  At Fjord’s intrusion, Beau and Nott both lost their grip in   surprise.  The book flew into the air and landed with a _thump_ on top of Fjord’s head.  “Oof!”

The letters scattered all across camp.

Between Beau and Nott’s shouting and Fjord’s intrusion, the rest of the group had woken up by then.

“What is going on?” Caleb asked.

“Who wants some tea?” Caduceus stoked the coals on the fire, checking if there was enough heat to boil some water.

“What are those?” Jester pointed out the falling envelopes.

Jester snatched an envelope off Caleb’s face, who was still lying down, and opened it.  As her eyes scanned the page, Beau could feel the blush creep onto her cheeks.

Following Jester’s lead, both Fjord and Nott also grabbed letters to see what all the fuss was.

Jester dropped the parchment in her hands and lunged for another.  She looked over it quickly, then dropped it and moved to another, the wicked grin on her face growing wider with each letter.  She snatched one from Fjord’s hands and, upon seeing yet another one, she tossed it into the air in excitement.  The pressed daisy and the parchment fell apart as the floated to the ground.

“Careful with that!” Beau gasped as she reached out to catch the flower before it hit the ground.  She sat cross-legged on the ground and carefully folded it back into its envelope.

“Don’t you all see what this means?” Jester asked.

Fjord blinked.  Nott shrugged.  She nibbled on one of the sunflower petals.  Beau quickly yanked it from her grasp.

“Beau’s in lo-o-ove!” Jester sang out.

Needless to say, Beau was mortified.

“I just like knowing that Yasha is okay.”  Beau gathered the rest of the letters from around camp and placed them carefully back inside the book.  She couldn’t hide the color that flushed her cheeks.

“Beau and Yasha sitting in a tree,” Jester continued, dancing around camp.  “K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

“Fuck off, Jester.”

After a day or so, the thrill had worn off and Jester had, for the most part, ceased her teasing.  Traveling with her became tolerable once again, although more than once, she gave Jester a nice whack with her staff for good measure.

Once things had died down, Nott actually apologized for prying.  Beau was pretty sure Caleb asked her to apologize, but if Beau didn’t actively shove away any flicker of emotion, she might have thought it was kind of sweet.

When the next week’s flower day came, Beau didn’t receive a letter.  She checked every inn and tavern in Hupperdook, but no one had sent a letter to Beauregard Lionett.

Frowning, she knocked on Jester’s door at the inn.  “I’m coming!” chirped the voice from the other side of the door.  A moment later, Jester opened it.

“Did you tell Yasha where we were going?” Beau immediately asked.

“I always tell Yasha where we are going.” Jester said with a grin.  “I even managed to get it down to only two messages this time!”

“Did she say anything?” Beau asked.  “You taught her how to reply, right?”

Jester nodded vehemently.  “Yes she said, ‘Thank you Jester’.”

“That’s it?”

“Why?”

Beau sighed.  “I haven’t gotten a letter yet but it should have come today,” she mumbled under her breath.

“What did you say?” Jester said.

“I haven’t gotten a letter yet!” Beau grumbled, loud enough for Jester to understand.  “It should’ve come today.”

“I hope she’s okay,” Jester frowned.

“When was the last time you talked to her?” Beau asked.  She pushed past Jester into the room and began to pace back and forth.

“A few days ago when I told her we were coming here,” Jester said.  Then, her eyes lit up.  “Ooh! I can send her another message!”

“Okay, do it!” Beau said.  “But don’t tell her I was asking make it just like a general question.”

Jester nodded.  She grabbed the Traveler’s symbol and held it to her chest, closing her eyes.  When she opened her eyes again, they were all white, and she began to speak into the air.  “Hello Yasha, it is me again, your good friend Jester Lavorre.  I hope your travels are fantastical! Anyway, we were all wondering where you FUCK!”  Jester blinked and her eyes were colored again.  “Just one more should be good.”  Beau sat down on the bed and watched her intently, as she figured that this might take a while.

She began to cast the spell again and continued.  “Sorry I got cut off!  Anyway we were wondering where you are and if you’re okay!  No one in particular was wondering just general curiosity.”  Jester blinked again as the spell ended.  “Dang it!  That was rude I didn’t even say goodbye! One more.”

Once again, Jester focused, and began to speak.  “It’s me again! I just wanted to say we hope you are okay, and would love to see you soon. You can reply to this!”  As Jester finished the spell, she contemplated for a moment whether to send another message.  She looked to Beau.  “That’s fine, right?  That should be fine.”

“Jester, that was more than fine,” Beau said with a soft chuckle.  “Has she replied?”

Jester shook her head.  “Not yet.”  Neither of them spoke.  It was almost a full minute later when Jester gasped.  “It was her!”

“What did she say?”

Jester cleared her throat.  “She said, ‘I am fine.’”

Beau raised an eyebrow.  “…that’s it?”  Jester nodded.  Beau got up from the bed and scuffed her foot on the floor.  “Cool, cool, cool,” she muttered.  “That’s cool.  It’s fine.”  She shuffled out of the room.  “Thanks, Jester,” she said over her shoulder, and headed back to her own room.

It was good to know that Yasha wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere, but Beau had begun to look forward to her letters from Yasha.  She was a little sad to not have a new flower to add to her collection today, but whatever.  At least Yasha was alive.  Somewhere.

Beau ended up walking right past her own room and leaving the hotel.  She passed by Caleb on her way out.  “I’m going to The Blushing Tankard,” she said as she passed him.  “Don’t come with.”

“I was not planning to,” Caleb replied, with that disdainful tone that Beau had grown to love.

Beau only had one mug of ale.  She nursed it as she sulked at the bar for most of the evening.  She was so off her game that she didn’t even try to flirt with the hot tiefling in the corner.

By the time Beau’s ale had gone lukewarm, she was ready to chug the rest, head back to the inn, and go to sleep.  Then, the tavern doors flew open and a tall, muscular figure with wild hair and a sword was silhouetted in the doorway.

The figure stepped inside and the light in the bar fell on dark hair, faded white at the tips, pale skin, and two different colored eyes.

“Yasha?”  Beau sat up a little straighter.  Yasha met her eyes and made a beeline for the bar.  Beau shoved the gnome sitting next to her off his chair to make room.

“Hey!” he called.  “I was sitting there!”

Instead of answering, Beau pushed his drink across the bar to the next stool over.  He grumbled to himself, but climbed up onto the next chair over just in time for Yasha to sit down next to Beau.

“Hello, Beauregard.”  Up close, Beau noticed that Yasha was sporting a black eye (not just from her make-up), a gash on her left shoulder, and dried blood under her nose, which also looked a little crooked.  “I meant to arrive this morning, but I was a little bit side-tracked.”

Beau waved to Ireena behind the bar.  “Could I get a glass of water?  And some napkins?”  They were placed in front of her promptly.  Beau soaked the napkins, then brought it up to Yasha’s face to wipe the dried blood away.  “Are you okay?  You look pretty fuckin’ rough.”

Yasha nodded.  “You should see the other guy.”

Beau chuckled.  “We should get you to Caduceus,” she said.  “He can probably fix this.”  She tapped gently on Yasha’s slightly bent nose.

“I will see him soon,” Yasha said.  “Caleb said that I would find you here.  I wanted to deliver this in person.”  She reached into her small rucksack and retrieved another envelope, just like the other ones.  She handed it to Beau.

This envelope wasn’t sealed, so Beau easily retrieved the parchment, and unfolded it.   A pressed rose fell onto the countertop.  The petals were yellow and faded to a soft, pastel orange at the tips.  She took the flower in her hands.

Yasha looked at it in wonder, and a smile graced her lips.  “Aren’t the colors beautiful?” she asked, her eyes bright and filled with awe.

“Yeah,” Beau muttered, thinking only of the colors in Yasha’s eyes.  “They are.”

She set the flower carefully down on the table, then turned in her seat to face Yasha.  Beau reached out to hold Yasha’s cheeks and pull her in closer as Beau leaned in to press a soft kiss against Yasha’s chapped lips.

It was not a long kiss.  It was gentle, and easy, and Beau gave Yasha every opportunity to pull away.  But when she didn’t, Beau leaned back herself a few seconds later.  Yasha’s eyes had shut, and after a moment, they fluttered back open.  She cleared her throat, and her hands fidgeted in her lap.

“So, er—did you like the flowers?” Yasha asked.

Beau nodded.  “Yeah!  Yes.  They were, uhh, they were really cool.”  She pursed her lips, waiting for Yasha to say something else so she wouldn’t have to, but it never came.  “Okay,” Beau sighed, “we both know I’m shit at this,” she gestured between herself and Yasha, “this _words_ thing.”

Yasha nodded.  “I’m afraid I am as well,” she muttered.  This time, she grasped at Beau’s vest and met her in the middle for another kiss.  The rest of the tavern disappeared for a moment as Beau eagerly returned the kiss and let Yasha pull her closer, shivering as cold fingers lightly brushed against the bare skin of her stomach.  

Beau has never been very good with emotions, but with Yasha, she’s willing to give it a shot.

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing for Critical Role and Beau/Yasha, and probably not the last. I hope you enjoyed this soft gay shit. Please leave a comment to let me know what you thought, and follow me on Tumblr @elliesgaymachete!


End file.
